One focus of my research is teen girls and communications technology. Teen girls are of particular interest as a research subject, since communicating is the central focus of their lives, and they’re early adopters of communication technologies.

Recently we completed a qualitative study of older teenage girls in the US and UK, to learn how they use technology to create and maintain their privacy, and how they feel about technologies that could reveal their locations to their families and friends. We also wanted to determine if they use text messaging as a way to maintain their privacy, as their Japanese counterparts do, according to previous research. Our study focused on girls ages 17 to 18, at the point when they’re still living at home but are on the threshold of adulthood. We examined their everyday lives—where they went, why they used technology, and when and how.

For the study, we introduced the use of weblogs or “blogs,” which is a novel technique in ethnographic research. Each group of girls had their own blog. A question was posted on the blog each day, and the girls responded to it with text and photos. They were also asked to record information about their everyday lives, including their experiences and emotions, so we could learn more about them from a distance.

At the end of the blogging period, which lasted about two weeks, we conducted in-depth interviews with each of the girls. During the interviews, we asked them to draw maps of their homes, where they went in the home and where they used technology, and where and how they interacted with the friends in their group.

Another way that we sought to uncover the teens’ feelings about technology and privacy was to ask them about the “worst technology” we could create for them. Based on photos and text from their blogs, we came up with several design concepts, including technologies that could stream video, audio or text about their lives directly to their homes. Based on their feedback the worst technology for girls is anything that lets their parents know exactly what they are saying, doing or writing!

Our study found that, unlike Japanese teens, those in our study didn’t prefer text messaging as a way to ensure their privacy when communicating with friends. Instead, mobility was the key to privacy as they still wanted to have voice conversations. The teens would take their cell phones or the family’s cordless phone to their bedrooms or other parts of the house where they were less likely to be overheard. Or they would simply leave the house with their cell phone if they wanted privacy.

Not surprisingly, we found that cell phones gave the girls in our study greater mobility and autonomy. They could leave home without saying where they were going because their parents knew they could contact them at any time. However, the girls could choose what they wanted to reveal to their parents about their location. Several of the girls assigned special ringtones for their parents, so they could “censor” the environment before answering the phone.

More research needs to be done in this area, in terms of exploring girls’ attitudes toward the balance between maintaining privacy and negotiating mobility with their parents. We also need to examine in more detail the use of blogging as a research methodology.

In 2006, my research activities will focus on a broad initiative in which Intel is participating, called Street Smart Spaces. Intel has done a lot of research looking specifically into smart homes and workplaces, but we all spend quite a lot of time in in-between spaces, moving through streets, particularly on foot or in public transportation in urban areas. The street is bounded by offices, shops and homes so it is an amalgam of many spaces, and for some people the street is their workplace or their home. The goal of this new initiative is to explore how people use streets, and try to envision possible ways that technology could “take to the streets”. Our research will take us to England, China and Brazil over the course of the year. Our ethnographic research enables Intel to gain insights that would be difficult to gain through other research methods. Our ultimate goal is to help ensure that the technology products Intel designs are relevant to the way people really live their lives.

Intel sponsored a kickoff project for the Street Smart Spaces initiative—a three-week course, that was part of the MA course in the Department of Interaction Design* of the Royal College of Art (RCA)* in London. I participated in the course, which was called Smart Street. Students were challenged to develop services and scenarios for a smart street of the future. The project focused on the Gloucester Road neighborhood in London, which is near the RCA. This enabled the students to observe and engage those who will be affected by their proposals.

As a starting point for the project, students considered two upcoming changes that could have a significant impact on the lives of those who live and work in Gloucester Road. In 2007, the government will implement a Congestion Charge on vehicles that pass through the area during business hours. When this charge was implemented in 1994 for drivers who enter central London, it changed people’s behavior. Many people stopped driving. Others bought scooters, which aren’t subject to the toll. Many others wait on the fringes of the area until six o’clock, when the toll expires. In short, the Congestion Charge has had an impact on people’s daily lives and travel habits as well as on the businesses in the area. We can expect that it will influence the behavior of those who live and work in Gloucester Road when it’s implemented there.

The second change will happen between 2008 and 2012, when the analog TV signal will be turned off. This will free up spectrum for new digital communications, such as wireless broadband, high quality video, and new public service TV channels.

The students were asked to assume that a new category of vehicles, called “e-vehicles” would be exempt from the Congestion Charge, and that a local TV channel, “Watch My Street TV Media Group” would use the street as its studio. Given those assumptions, students were asked to explore what potential e-vehicles would be like, how local media might be produced and how the people who work, live and pass through Gloucester Road would interact.

After observing and interviewing in Gloucester Road the students developed some experimental concepts which they took out to Gloucester Road as a method of furthering their understanding of the space and getting the feedback of those who worked and lived in the street. They started by building a “swap box” on the street where people could leave items they didn’t need and take others they did. Each item would have a tag that includes a story about the object and passers-by were asked to talk about the objects and the stories they were interested in. Another idea was to create a “Gloucester Road messaging system” which involved people in the area delivering messages to one another using large Post-It* notes carried by the students to explore possible new avenues of communication for a community. People working in the stores were asked to “Build Your Own Street” by assembling a model of Gloucester Road in the future using small cardboard props.

The students then used the feedback and insights from their experiments to propose scenarios for their smart street. One proposed scenario was the use of “gossip cars” that would be shared by the community. Rather than paying a fare, a passenger would have to offer a story or gossip in exchange for a ride, and could listen to other peoples’ stories as they traveled around. Another scenario was the “barter bus,” which would let passengers pay for their rides by offering local information or entertainment which would be broadcast by the bus as it traveled across London.

These are just a few of the methods and concepts that students created in thinking about the smart street of the future. These results of the course will inform the rest of our work on the broader Street Smarts Spaces initiative in 2006.

Before joining Intel in 2000, Wendy March spent two and a half years at IDEO, where she worked on a broad range of product design projects. Prior to that, she was an Interaction Designer for Taligent Corporation. March holds a Masters of Science degree in Information Systems from the University of Brighton, UK, and a Masters of Arts degree in Computer Related Design from the Royal College of Art in London. Her work on teen girls and privacy was presented at the Inaugural EPIC 2005 conference and will be presented at CHI 2006.